Tender
by Prince Aoyagi
Summary: Tokino and Nisei have a rather one-sided conversation.


Nisei's grey, emotionless stare was the first thing that met Tokino as he walked into the room. His stare, boring into Tokino's eyes in an utmost unsettling way, as if there were still something behind them. He didn't move, not when Tokino closed the door, and not when Tokino approached the man, if he can even be called such, a grimace on his face. It seemed that at any moment he would react and suddenly begin to speak in that cold, carefree voice that he always had. The voice that could say the most horrible things, and have those things sound so normal and almost expected coming from his lips.

"Fucking piece of ishit/i," Mikado's own words came from Tokino in a throaty growl, sounding primodial and animal-like. He lunched forward, grabbing Nisei in a fit of fury, the monster's eyes wide and not growing any wider as Tokino grabbed him, holding him up by the hair. It almost surprised him, how light he was, as if he'd been expecting something much heavier. He wanted nothing more than to tear the rest of this man apart, to rip the hair from his veryy head, to cut it all off, just as he'd done to Mikado, and then to tear his ugly, god damned face off. His rage was an insatiable thing, something that'd never be fufilled and would never completely disappear, even after everything was said and done and dead.

"I hate you," He whispered. It felt like an affirmation of sorts. Tokino was a kind man who perhaps ha ulterior motives for things, but he didn't easily come to hate someone. People who were rude or angry-he didn't hate them. He hated people who hurt Mikado, arrogant, ignorant, sadistic people. People like Akame Nisei and Aoyagi Seimei. People who'd betrayed her. He could easily remember a day when Mikado had had something equivalent to a friend-Seimei. Seimei had been her friend, and on more than one occassion, Nisei and Tokino had had a friendly conversation. Those days seemed so far behind and gone, and would never come to be again. Moonless was a pair that operated alone and with their best interests in mind, and never with another unit unless the situation absolutely required it. Mikado lived with no friends, claiming to have no emotions, and seemed content with chasing rats and murdering them, and Tokino was a man who would follow her through all of that and accompany her into the darkness.

"What's it like?" He inquired, his voice shaking for the very first time as he held the emotionless man by the hair. He found it creepy, almost, that his expression still remained the same, though he should have expected such. "What's it like for you, being dead? I hope you're paying for it, Akame. I really hope you are. Maybe you're back with your master. You seemed so distraught without him, when he abandoned you. He wasn't very good to you, was he?"

This one-sided conversation was definitely beginning to take a turn he hadn't expected.

He'd seen the way Nisei had been treated, the way he'd pleaded when he was being dragged down by restraints and spells, dragged down and begging for Seimei to save him. Tokino had continued, of course. He had no compassion for a sadist who'd raped and helped betray Mikado. But he'd realized something-Nisei had known he wasn't going to live, and he'd begged Seimei to not let him die. Perhaps Mikado really was right. Perhaps their grudge really was more with Seimei than Nisei. Perhaps Seimei really was worse, or they were equally as bad as each other. None of that mattered now. That was one thing Tokino knew for sure.

Tokino hummed in wonderment, staring down at Nisei's lifeless face with a new curiosity. He was a terrible disgusting man, yes, but- "Perhaps I should've killed Seimei instead of you? I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you," It wasn't like he could, anyways. "We-Mikado and I-still would have tortured you extensive and killed you eventually, but perhaps I should've gone after Seimei instead of you. Though you still disgust me, there's very little damage you can actually do on your own, whereas Seimei..."

Seimei could do a lot of damage. And he had, with Agatsuma at his side, whether unwillingly or not. Devastating damage, and he hadn't been caught yet. Only Akame had. And Akame had been slaughtered. Tokino had made a mistake, plain and simple, and that mistake was coming back to bite him tenfold.

Nisei's face still didn't change, and that incited an anger inside of Tokino, an anger both at himself and at the Beloved threesome. He would kill them. He would kill them all. "I made a mistake," It was his first time saying it allowed. It wasn't as if Mikado had ever told him that he'd made a mistake, but Tokino knew. He wasn't completely stupid. He knew when he'd screwed up. He didn't need to be told. Perhaps Mikado was trying to protect him from the hurt of not being an adequate Fighter. Perhaps she was trying to make it seem like everything was alright, when it most certainly wasn't. The wrong person was dead. Maybe not the wrong person-but surely not the right person. However, Tokino was left wondering if he would've changed what he'd done if he could. It'd been a heated moment, and in that heated moment, Tokino had remembered the sight of Mikado crying, her hair messily cut off, her ears absent from her head, injuries marring her innocent body, and the next thing he knew, he'd slaughtered the perpetrator.

"I hate you," He said it again. "But Seimei...Seimei... Maybe I hate him mor- Maybe he's worse than-" He abruptly cut himself off, his rage only growing at himself. maybe he's worse than you./i He wouldn't allow himself to say such words, no matter if they were true or not. He cursed, loudly, fighting to urge to yank Nisei's hair, to throw him at the wall, to beat him up, but really, that wouldn't do him any good.

Without another word to the dead man, Tokino dropped the severed head, kicking it with his foot, leaving as it rolled to the opposite wall, Nisei's expression still unchanging.

* * *

Do review.

-Dave


End file.
